Talk:Tokenism/Archives/2019

Suggestions to improve areas of ambiguity
Where this article tries to dissect the broad concept of tokenism into a few key subtopics, sometimes the information and examples overlap. This leads to a few instances of possible ambiguity. With a revised structure for this article, new space for supplemental information and citations may be opened. For instance, the mention of "hyper-tokenism" in the introductory paragraph may be better fit either in the "media" subsection or the "television" subsection, since it pertains most closely to token people of color and airtime. Similarly, the description of the broad scope of tokenism which is described in the "fiction" section may be better placed in the introduction ("The token character can be based on..."). The introduction begins by explaining how tokenism is a concept which affects multiple minority groups, but then the paragraph switches focus to racial minority groups; it may be more helpful to keep an introduction which explains the broadness of tokenism, then discuss how it affects specific minority groups in separate sections of the article. These types of minor stylistic changes alone would lend more clarity to the article which, in turn, may stabilize its overall credibility.

Separately, the mention of "tokenism in psychology" may be viable to stand as its own subtopic. Its mention within the "history" subsection may come off as arbitrary to readers.

Lastly, a few portions of this article lack proper source material. The history of tokenism has room for expansion, and the claim that it first came to be in the late 1950's lacks a source. (Research into the effects of the Civil Rights Act may help this claim.) The latter claim about tokenism in Riverdale seems argumentative and is missing any link to research/an analytical source. Leslie boudreau (talk) 03:46, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Smurfette principle
The tokenism article mentions this as an example of gender tokenism. Therefore, it seems like this stub can be merged as a section or paragraph of that article, as it is primarily a WP:DICDEF. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 20:31, 1 March 2018 (UTC)


 * The Smurfette Principle is different than Tokenism because while it may be in the same vein of discussing underrepresented peoples, it serves a different role. The Smurfette principle looks directly at the female role in media, not just any minority and not in any other medium besides screens and print. While the character/person in discussion may be included for the purpose of diversity, it not always the only reason. Many times the female is added to make the cast more interesting or colorful in terms of character development. The Smurfette Principle is also more of an observation of this tendency (toward adding for diversity) than solely an explanatory force. It also does not completely deviate from the idea that it would prevent the accusation of discrimination. The Smurfette Principle describes stereotyping women into typical female roles like motherhood or the "glamour queen," which inherently discriminates against women who do not fit into that "norm." (Historynerd2018 (talk) 16:39, 24 July 2018 (UTC)).
 * Closing, given the opposition and no support. Klbrain (talk) 06:44, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

Balance
The idea of the well-meaning employer appointing a few ethnics for the look of the thing is only one half of tokenism.

The other half of the picture is the employer who has to fill a quota of ethnics, and may not be able to find suitably qualified people. This leads to ethnics working in jobs above their ability. Valetude (talk) 23:24, 27 November 2019 (UTC)